A Study of Tabish Khair’s Poetic Work through Stylistics

Stylistics as a scientific discipline helps to interpret literary text logically based on linguistic evidence. This study aims at exploring the stylistic features of Tabish Khair’s poem, Immigrant. The poem has been analyzed on different levels of stylistics: graphological, phonological, morphological, syntactical, pragmatics, and discourse. The connotative and denotative meanings of the poem have been explored to get a complete understanding of the poem. The stylistic analysis of the poem reflects the main idea of the poem that is the quest of the poet for his homeland and his lost identity. The choice of the words by the poet has played a very important role in underlying major or minor themes of the poem. It is interesting to mention that he has not used the word Immigrant even once, yet the use of words is quite apt to convey the central idea. The poem is not monotonous or tedious. The poem is relatable to anyone experiencing the same phase of life or state of mind. The theme has been conveyed artistically by using different stylistic devices. This study is also the manifestation of the unique style and structure of Khair’s poetry.